Easy Movement Facilities for Users' Comfort in Shopping Malls in Clifton, Karachi, Pakistan

In society, shopping plays a part in outdoor activity. With the passage of time, different societies develop different modes of shopping by following particular societal values and norms. Modern shopping is a modified activity that is widely adopted by shopping malls. In this new set of shopping activities, users of shopping malls are not interested only in shopping but also in allied facilities like a ramp, main entrance of the mall, wheelchair, information desk/ reception, informal seating, signage system/wayfinding, emergency exit, central circulation, horizontal circulation, wide walkways/corridors, staircase, elevator/lift, escalators and cargo lift. Some basic facilities are unavoidable while designing a shopping mall, but these facilities may differ in different shopping malls. One of the specialities of the specific mall is a user-based facility which is the main attribute of shopping malls. This study emphasises selected attributes of a shopping mall, i.e., easy movement facilities. Emerald Mall in the city of Karachi, Pakistan, was selected as a case study building. A quantitative and qualitative research methodology has been adopted; the collected data was then presented statistically. An analysis of the findings has been carried out according to the standard attributes of the shopping mall. The conclusion of the study includes that some of
the areas of Emerald Mall are well established, but there is still a need for improvements in many areas, such as the ramp, main entrance of the mall, wheelchair, information desk/reception, informal seating, signage system/wayfinding, emergency exit, central circulation, horizontal circulation, wide walkways/corridors, staircase, elevator/lift, escalators, and cargo lift. The research establishes its contribution as the provision of framework and modular analysis of selected study for a contextual approach to architectural design development. This study recommends innovation for the future in the design of the selected mall in order to address the discrepancies identified.